You’re Only As Strong As Your Weakest Link But As Wise As Your Strongest

Back in 2002, when I still watched television, I remember the game show, the Weakest Link. The premise of this game was to have a team of players trying to reach and bank a set target within a limited time period by answering a chain of answers correctly. The chain was broken if one player answered incorrectly, or if they decided to bank the money in the chain already. When a player answered the question wrong, they were eliminated and the game show host would see them off by saying: “You are the weakest link. Goodbye!” 

Obviously, each team hoped to have what they thought to be “strong” players, as that would help them to achieve their individual goals. They didn’t always recognize where the “weakest” link would be, so it was important to each do their best to keep in the game in order to potentially make a play for their win they helped to grow.

In this scenario, the “strongest” links were self-serving in their quest as well, and therefore not truly acting from the spirit and wisdom of “team effort” for a greater good. After all, these games are focused on winning and that tends to be an individual goal rather than being in the spirit of unity.

Now, I’m not about “winning or losing”, nor supporting a game of humiliation as a spectacle, but the premise here of the “whole” being only as strong as the weakest link within that whole, I feel has some important symbolism in terms of integrative healing processes that have been a focal point for everyone. And especially so if you are wanting to move into the fullness, freedom, and expansion of you, since doing so involves having done the integrative, deep, and honest work that will bring you to the realizations that have always resided within, awaiting you to embrace their truth.

You will only be able to do as much as is equal to the amount your shadow aspects have been loved, embraced, integrated, and transmuted. This is evident in the things that suddenly crop up or trigger you, or perhaps even completely pull the rug out from under you when you thought everything was peachy keen.

You can be chugging along feeling things are all lining up and incredible, then suddenly hit a break in the train track along the way and boom! Crash goes your puffed-up ego and positive “I think I can” fluffy engine with a domino effect of all your cars/pieces smashing one into the other, all the way down to your caboose, because you weren’t keeping in conscious, full-spectrum connection with the whole picture.

You can’t fake your way through life and you definitely can’t spiritually bypass the shadows within you that will blare at you from all angles until you revisit your natural feelings in a deeper, holistic way.

It’s not about judgment either, so weak doesn’t mean bad, wrong, or less enlightened…it simply is a piece that hasn’t seen the light yet, nor has been nurtured with the wisdom of your strongest parts that can lovingly assist them into empowerment, if given the committed attention and energy.

To explain how this works, remember that a link is something that holds things together. So in the case of a chain, if you pull from each end of it, your ability to break the chain is in proportion to how strong the links in the chain are, which dictates the amount of force it would take to do so – small or large.

It is said that if every link within the chain has the ability to withstand a strong force without breaking, then the chain is strong. If just one link breaks with even just a weak force, then the whole chain is weak, despite the strength of the other links. (hold that last thought until I revisit it shortly)

Something can come out and bite you in the butt by surprise because of untended old beliefs, repressed and denied emotions, and past pains unhealed.

So it’s a way of pointing out the weak points, or parts in need of your love, within you. You will find greater strength with all the new you are creating when you’ve refreshed and strengthened the old, weathered foundation/weak points.

But rather than measure yourself by your challenges, feel humiliation, shame, or defeat about the weaker aspects (as the game show liked to capitalize on), it would benefit you more to be grateful for them showing up and messaging you – seeing them as a helpful, valuable, and incredibly useful partner wanting to provide you the insights and tools to build the greatest creations ever.

Embracing your vulnerability and honesty with love, rather than judgment, ridicule, or self-punishment will provide you the gentle grace to fly. Self-punishment only keeps you caged.

But now let’s push play, from our previous hold, and take a look at the flip side as well. Is the chain really weak, because of some pieces needing your attention? Or is it that these weaker links are requiring your most wisest, strongest parts to step up to the plate and truly enact “real” strength to operate from their full potential?

While your weakest, untended parts/link may hinder, they do have their beauty and perfection for their presence in your life. And I have firmly believed that they hold the key to the most beautiful of your gifts and strengths when realized for what they are behind the distorted mirrors. There will always be seasons of change and inconstancy is part of the constancy of change. Your weaker and stronger parts don’t have to be a dichotomy of black and white duality, but rather the perspective of harmony within perfect elements that when understood, can create alchemy in your life.

Small tweaks to how we see and feel about things does change everything.

So, in fact, you are also as strong as your strongest links because the strength within their wisdom can be utilized productively, rather than as a force against or powering over the other parts. You can harness their innate clarity, courage, and compassion to meld with their counterparts to provide them exactly the cultivation they need for transmutation.

The wisdom of your strongest links wouldn’t dismiss the weaker links with a simple “goodbye”, as takes place in the game show, just because they don’t currently have the “right stuff”, as this can turn into denial or suppression since nothing was ever addressed. No, they don’t just go away by thinking them gone or ignoring them.

Instead, the wisdom of your strongest links would recognize there’s a vital ingredient the “weaker” have that will greatly impact the empowerment of the whole, so it is in the stronger link’s best interest to find ways to draw out and fortify the fine points rather than completely dismiss a part of the “team”. They have the vision to see that doing this will make them a force to reckon with, that will open more doors for ALL of you.

So rather than be the perpetrators of ridicule, enlist your strong links to replenish, renew, and reactivate the links in need, by utilizing the wisdom recognized in their call for help.

In this way both your so-called “weakest” and “strongest” links can rise to the occasion and support the fullness of your whole being.

Getting “Real” Really Is Key

Little by little I’m seeing that people are coming to understand that there’s more to creating change than simply being “positive” and reciting affirmations, which is so refreshing. And so it seems that another round of inner reflection about your emotional landscape is coming up as an important topic again to reflect on, as you are working with integrating the deep roots of your experience.

I’ve written a lot on this subject including this August post:

It’s Okay to Feel ~ Allowing Your Humanness To Be The Reflection Of Divinity It Is.

So I smiled when I read this short MindBodyGreen article, a few days ago, by Aimee Dufresne: 

Stop Being “Positive” and Start Getting Real (Joy) In Your Life

In it, Aimee shares a few of her own simple hints and good places to start, to help you to “get real”.

As she puts it, just being positive is:

….”like trying to fit into the cutest pair of shoes that you want so badly but the only size available is a half size smaller than your feet. So you push and prod and tell yourself you can do it. You can bend your big toe and walk at an odd angle. Maybe the shoes will stretch if you wear them long enough. That chaffing isn’t so bad, is it?

Yes, it is. The further you push and force yourself into something that doesn’t fit, the more struggle and angst you will feel.”

So, if you have found yourself doing some of the spiritual bypassing, “fluffiness”, or denial with your emotions, where you “fake” a reality of feeling, crack a smile, and simply affirm otherwise, then you may want to check the links out and revisit your natural feelings in a deeper, holistic way.

Reason For Rainbows

Grenada

Just because….

I was inspired this morning when I woke up and saw the 8 paintings I’ve done so far, displayed across the floor in a rainbow collage that tickled my heart and soul. I then knew instantly I was being guided to post some rainbow inspiration, so I am sharing these photos that I’ve taken of some rainbows showing up in my life and this enlivening music by Yanni (whom I listen to so often), as there is always a “Reason for Rainbows”.

Okay, so maybe the reason is that the way I live my life is from the full spectrum of the rainbow, and then some.

Maybe it’s because my palette as an artist of life is limitless in breadth of colorful experiences and I am one who loves to dip into life fully and make splashes with vibrancy.

 

Maybe it’s because our feelings are like a rainbow of reflections that are beautiful in and of themselves. And, when fully expressed, are a miracle of natural art that IS only because of the integral flowing strokes coming together.

And maybe it’s because life just simply is a rainbow of experiences that I find to be an exciting adventure.

last evening’s second stunning sunset

I know I am definitely experiencing the colors of life in high definition these days and that equates to pure harmony. I have even seen this weekend the mirror of this not only in my current paintings I’m creating, as I continue to explore the unlimited colors and combinations, but also in two sunsets back to back that have been stunning, high-definition, colorful sunset displays of the Universe giggling along with me in my “rainbow explorations”. Who knows what today will bring. It’s a suspenseful surprise always!

“Life is like a rainbow. You need both the sun and the rain to make its colors appear.” ~Unknown

I’ve already shared about letting your feelings move through you and allowing your humanness to be the reflection of Divinity it is. The feelings that you bury, never go away until you embrace, forgive, and allow them to move through you. A good place to start is to always be mindful and conscious of what you’re feeling, thinking, saying, AND doing. See how these are setting the tone for your day…and life..and be willing to receive the origin of these feelings (as there is always a trigger to something behind it) so that with recognition and accountability, you can let them go.

Feelings are like all things natural…they must keep cycling through or you end up fighting an exhausting and futile battle against the inevitable.

Each color of your wings is a color of your truth and spirit to share. Don’t be afraid to let it flow. Spread your wings wide and sore to the heights of you.

“Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.” ~Aberjhani

 

 

 

It’s Okay To Feel ~ Allowing Your Humanness To Be The Reflection Of Divinity It Is

Have you ever punished yourself or felt ashamed and “less than” because of feeling angry, sad, disappointed, hurt, or judgmental? My guess is that I’d be close to accurate in saying that nearly all of us at some point have learned to react in this way towards feelings that are simply natural processes, but have been labeled “wrong” on the flip side of the same coin of life experience.

It is all really “okay” and to view things this way or to be hard on yourself really is not what unconditional love and compassion is about and keeps us trapped in the very separated world of black and white duality.

One thing I have found to be misleading with New Age thoughts of the old have been to mentally reprogram with positive affirmations, but with an unrealistic focus and expectation that there will never again be a moment of experiencing anything on one side of the coin because you have moved onto the other.

Remember, the very existence of one is only possible because of the other. We experience the flip-flop because of our present focuses and yet at any moment we can also experience the simultaneousnous of All That Is, which always IS even while we are in this see-saw effect – for now, perhaps this is simply a concept to many that is hard to grasp, yet many of you enter that space at certain “tapped in” moments.

While this “positive programming” can last for a while, it is not built to last. It potentially brings with it a lot of repression, or potential denial and “stuffing” of old, core emotions.

Glass castles built in the sky can easily be shattered by one single rock thrown from the foundation upon which it was built.

Hence, as within, so without. Denial, judgment (which can include the focus on only “one side” of experience), and refusal, can and will come back to haunt.

The trick however, is not only “not” to run from it, but to learn to love, forgive, and realize the natural flow of emotions that are integral and valuable to your evolution as a human being. This is now possible in an instant when we grasp the new perspectives and ways. That is, until we start to over-analyze and think, “It simply can’t be that easy,” and therefore we negate that we actually shifted the experience when we go back into our old stories and programming to try to “work it out” some more.

We cannot escape feelings and challenges, but we can learn to embrace them as the Divine perfection they are and see them through the same Universal eyes that simply observes, never judges, and is in the business of experiencing for sake of experiencing itself, and all of the integral parts that make up the whole of All That Is.

We, in human form, are gifted the opportunity to experience all of these parts that make up Oneness, in a very tangible and sensual way. The trick is not to get “stuck” in any one experience, thought, or feeling, but instead, to allow the cycling of energy to do what it is born to do…keep moving, re-creating, expanding, flowing, and blazing in motion of perfection.

The gift of living in a human body temple is to BE human. And while we are learning about ourselves, we are also provided opportunity to experience out the spectrum of colors that make up the Universe, in a focused way of our present choosing, while being challenged to remember it all in its unity and integration. At some point you will be able to walk both of these paths at once, coming to realize your luminous beingness that is always perfectly imperfect.

But for now, just realizing the beautiful perfection of energy, how it flows, and learning to mirror the ocean’s currents, nature’s seasons, and the cosmos’ rebirthing – all as natural cycles of life force energy simply being in its exquisiteness and grace – will greatly release the fixations of false illusions holding you stuck in any one experience.

A new reality is awaiting creation once you cross the threshold of your limitations.

It is really of benefit to evolve into a place where you can value, embrace, appreciate, experience, read, and flow feelings in their fullness. This provides a key to the map of consciousness that will bring you into your highest potentials of awakening, as well as into abundance and harmony in all areas of life.

When we spend time talking about the unwanted feelings this usually will do the opposite of moving them through you, and rather, may increase the experience of them, as you get stuck in the spiraling “story”.

Even people who have done a lot of spiritual work can find their awakening limited because they haven’t yet learned to fully allow for flow of feelings in their life. This can create challenges with abundance, health, drama filled relationships, and a whole gamut of challenging emotions and struggles.

Along with flowing the feelings with gentle nurturing, also remember to change the inner landscape and work with the mirrors there the minute they show up, which will then reflect the outer reality you are embodying.

When you truly get this, things do actually become magical. This isn’t just a word I enjoy using. It IS an actual reality that is available to choose.

Some ways to gauge how you are doing is to look at your body and your life, as they will never lie. Do they flow with ease and grace? If not, then you can start to take a look at the different layers of your life for the messages they are revealing to you – look at your state of happiness and well being, your relationships, your abundance, your physical body, your work…

All of this, including your consciousness and spiritual awakening has everything to do with the core feelings that reside within you about everything in and around you.

If everything isn’t the way you desire, remember that this is also okay. Simply use the information and messages as the tools to help get you where you do want to be without judgment of where you’re at now, or where you came from.

Nature doesn’t judge or think twice about her trees who lose all of their leaves in the winter, does she? She doesn’t think twice, because its simply a cycle of life and all things always WILL cycle around in a renewed and unique way – every moment recreating itself from the creative force that is your Source. All of it is in Divine order and alignment. It is when we get in the way of the cycles and start building a dam to stop the water’s flow, that we are creating unnatural effects that will have to give way when we may least want or expect it to. You can’t buck Universal laws. :)

What is your protocol for working with your feelings? Is it one of recognition and honoring, or one of angry denial and judgment? Do you love all of your feelings now, or try to get rid of ones you don’t like because they don’t fit the “ideal” of “perfection”?

Have you done some of the spiritual bypassing and “fluffiness” with your emotions? Whereas you “fake” a reality of feeling, crack a smile, and simply affirm otherwise. These don’t last and when they don’t, we wonder why, as we thought that’s what we were told to do, right? Whether it was our parents who showed us how they “smiled” their way through frustrations because they thought it best we don’t see their pains and challenges since they were taught to just push through it, or whether it was the New Age teachings that said to focus on affirming only the positive or to meditate to escape it, there are conditionings to “unlearn” that simply don’t work.

And there are many other aspects we’ve all likely experienced one or more of to also be conscious about, while remembering not to judge the steps we’ve taken already, where we come from, or anything that has led us to where we are now. It has all been a perfect unfolding (including the people that taught us) of simply stepping stones on our personal growth path with good intentions from the place they and we could “see” from at the time.

Yet, now you can review them and see which things may still be inhibiting or slowing your liberation and which are actually expanding it. Then let them be. Thank them. Let go and allow the flow to naturally move through you so that it can catch up to your new mental programming and work in synergy with, rather than against, them.

Some very good intentioned modalities we’ve all exercised are: over-analyzing feelings and getting stuck in the story only talking rather than feeling them fully, releasing and moving through them, constantly looking for the magic fix to once and for all heal and rid yourself of things forever or getting to a place of some “devised” perfect state of only “good” feelings, becoming dependent on others to “heal” for you (which includes venting to friends, family, and counselors for indefinite years on end) rather than committing to learn how to do it yourself and be able to tap into your empowered source within (As truly no one can alter your experience for you. They can merely support you with the best possible opportunity and environment for temporary results, but the long term is dependent upon you).

There is nothing more freeing and enlivening than discovering your ability to be experiencing what you have long desired, rather than merely talking or reading about it. If you are here on Earth at this time, you have every opportunity to experience more fullness of you now, in your own unique way, just as anyone else. And you also have the choice to move more freely through your perfect perpetual evolution. There are many who are coming to experience this more and more and so it is becoming much more prevalent a possibility by the increasing rippling waves on the collective ocean.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat it again. Gone are the days of having to work so long and hard on yourself, to attend endless seminars and healing sessions, to struggle, process, and become overwhelmed with thinking you have to learn everything there possibly is before you will be some idea of an enlightened, awakened being.

You are already spiritual by default. Remembering this is what you are living out through your human experience in your beautiful temple body, can shift you into realizing there is Divinity innate to you always that isn’t Universally being judged. We judge because we forget and this happens when we only identify with one aspect of ourselves, rather than our wholeness, which believe it or not, is always present in every single moment – yes even when you get angry or triggered by something.

Many of us have gone through the long drawn out processes, but that doesn’t mean that you have to, nor that you have to continue to if you already have. That’s the beauty of our interconnectedness. And I can tell you that I experience the distinction between my processes from before and the simplicity of the now. It is very easy to shift any experience in the moment these days.

Having come from the “old” way I can clearly see the differences. I do see that even in the spiritual New Age community of thinking that there is an old and new way – one based still on the programming and foundations of the “hard work” (old male) experiences we thought we were moving away from with our pulling away from it, and one rooted in grace, ease, and flow (Divine Feminine that then works in partnership and harmony with Divine Male) that is creating a different way and choice.

It is up to you to use your free will and choose another reality and with that, different perspectives and paths that will lead you to what you desire in essence, that will actually work for you because they are aligned with the energetics present now.

There isn’t a lot of teaching out there that addresses how to move through all of your levels in order to integrate them. Positive affirmations are only a piece of the puzzle as they address only the mental and suppress the rest of what you are feeling in your body and emotions, which can cause confusion inwardly that will show up later. And then many of us fall prey to a destructive spiral of self-judgment.

“The important thing to remember is that we can’t skip over the levels. We can’t just go straight to the unity level and pray and meditate all day long and expect that we’re gonna be healed, because what happens is that people who meditate a lot will be fantastic when they’re meditating or when they’ve been praying for three hours. But as soon as they go back out into the world, they become activated in their body and they don’t know why. And there’s this subtle message inside of us that says ‘What’s wrong with me? Why am I not getting better? I’m doing all this spiritual stuff.” The reason you’re not getting any better is because “you can’t just focus on the unity and then expect the body and the heart to know the truth about themselves. We have to work with the level of the body, the level of the heart, the level of the soul, and we heal on every level.” ~ Paige Bartholomew

Working with these levels, to me, is about allowing. Lovingly recognizing, honoring, mirroring, and bringing together each level with utmost presence and loving responsibility to life can have profound and efficient results that you have desired.

In doing so, you also learn compassion for others, as well as realize that you are loved in all of your wholeness at every step of the journey. There is no particular place or level to attain – only to keep going with the flow of the natural rhythms that will guide you always.

So when you are triggered, or find old stuff coming up, realize its presence is a gift. Not one to attach to and never let go of, but one to unwrap, so you can actually experience what is inside the box under the wrapping. All of the old we have stored away is merely a lot of accumulated boxes that are pushing open the closet door we have carefully locked them away behind, out of sight.

Remember that life is about giving and receiving. Anything done one-sided is not in natural flow of energy. So, too, is this true of the emotions we have been gifted – all of the spectrum that is – for our wholeness evolution. It is time to open and receive in flow.